Columbia vs. Hershey

Columbia University has banned all on-campus military recruitment because of Gen. Hershey's recent threat to draft those who obstruct recruiters for the Army. Columbia's move in no way contradicts the principle of open recruitment, but merely specifies that agencies cannot attach extra-legal threats to the presence of their recruiters on campus.

In Hershey's case, the threat is not only extra-legal but probably illegal. A similar pronouncement of his last year led indirectly to a U.S. Court of Appeals decision attacking the use of the draft as a punishment, and Selective Service as a judicial body.

But the effect of Hershey's edict is not limited to students actually inducted, nor even to students who obstruct army recruiters. Draft policy, as Gen. Hershey likes so frequently to point out, has a great deterrent impact on all men of draft age. Selective Service has made much of the 2-S deferment as an inducement to higher education. Presumably Gen. Hershey now sees his recent statement in a similar vein, as a means of discouraging student protest against the military.

Columbia has decided, quite reasonably, that it will not become a tool in Hershey's scheme. The issue is not one of the military on campus, but of an outside organization attempting to dictate the rules for on-campus activities. Whether legal or illegal, Hershey's directive is an infringement on the rights of a university.

Harvard, faced with the same challenge as Columbia, should react the same way, by barring military recruiters until Gen. Hershey agrees to play the game by the University's rules.